Numerical Simulation of Combustion of Natural Gas Mixed with Hydrogen in Gas Boilers

Abstract

Hydrogen mixed natural gas for combustion can improve combustion characteristics and reduce carbon emission, which has important engineering application value. A casing swirl burner model is adopted to numerically simulate and research the natural gas hydrogen mixing technology for combustion in gas boilers in this paper. Under the condition of conventional air atmosphere and constant air excess coefficient, the six working conditions for hydrogen mixing proportion into natural gas are designed to explore the combustion characteristics and the laws of pollution emissions. The temperature distributions, composition, and emission of combustion flue gas under various working conditions are analyzed and compared. Further investigation is also conducted for the variation laws of NOx and soot generation. The results show that when the boiler heating power is constant, hydrogen mixing will increase the combustion temperature, accelerate the combustion rate, reduce flue gas and CO2 emission, increase the generation of water vapor, and inhibit the generation of NOx and soot. Under the premise of meeting the fuel interchangeability, it is concluded that the optimal hydrogen mixing volume fraction of gas boilers is 24.7%.

Keywords

• hydrogen-blended combustion
• numerical simulation
• combustion characteristics
• pollutant generation
• flue gas analysis